


Hold Tight

by Solrika



Series: Crossbones [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Crossbones AU, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:35:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8491783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solrika/pseuds/Solrika
Summary: Jack's not going anywhere.





	

Everyone knew about old Mr. Hawthorne back in Jack’s town in Indiana. You go out at midnight, wander into the cornfields, take a bottle of whisky--and if you’re very lucky (or perhaps its inverse), he’ll come to talk to you. Jack’s senior year of high school, they’d all gone out into the corn. The night had lightened back into dawn without any glimpse of the ghost.

Jack remembers heading back out at noon, some vague stirring of conscience prompting him to go clean up the mess they’d left in the fields. He’d taken a plastic bag and some gloves and an old-fashioned music player, and spent the afternoon picking up his class’ trash. 

Old Mr. Hawthorne had shown even though the sun was still high in the sky, startling Jack half to death himself. He appeared like in all of the stories: melting out of the corn, his lower half ripped to pieces by the thresher that’d killed him, skin pulled tight and brittle over his bones. Jack hadn’t waited to see if Mr. Hawthorne had anything to say. He just ran, and didn’t look back.

The bag of trash turned up on his family’s doorstep in the morning. Jack’s still not sure what to think of the whole thing.

He can’t run this time--partly because he hasn’t got a prosthetic to replace his right leg, partly because why would he? It’s Gabe this time, not some old spook that’s been dead for decades. 

“You’re thinking about something awful hard, sunshine,” the man in question rumbles, and Jack ducks his head, looks to the side. Gabriel’s just a dark shape in the night. He hasn’t shown himself in the light yet, and Jack can’t help wondering what his partner is hiding.

“Thinking about you,” Jack finally replies, running his fingers over Gabe’s knuckles.

“Thinking what?”

“Just...” Jack looks to the side again. “Do you know they offered me a medium?”

Gabriel snorts. “Of course they did.”

“Said I was being ‘haunted’ and that it was my right to banish you to... wherever ghosts go, I guess.” Jack shakes his head, remembers the deep rush of anger he’d felt at the mere suggestion. The medium had stepped back from Jack’s glare, holding up his hands before seeming to remember that his powers had no impact on the living. “As if I’d throw away the chance to keep you in my life.” 

“I love you, sunshine, but you’re not the _only_ one I came back for,” Gabriel huffs, and Jack can practically feel him rolling his eyes. “We still have a war to finish.”

“Is that why you’re still wearing your armor?” 

It’s Gabriel’s turn to look away. Silence hangs between them for a moment, and then he murmurs, “I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t get rid of it.” 

“Maybe if you show me, I could help you take it off.” Jack tries for a teasing lilt when he adds, “I’m pretty good at that, you know.”

It works--Gabriel snorts a laugh, shakes his head, and Jack returns the glint of grinning teeth in the darkness. “You’re shameless,” Gabriel chuckles, and squeezes Jack’s hand. He looks down at their intertwined fingers, grin fading as he thinks. Jack waits, trying to be patient. They’ve got nothing but time now, after all. 

Eventually, Gabriel says, “I don’t want you to see me yet.”

Jack leans against his shoulder, tries to ignore this reminder that things aren’t exactly as they were. “Why not?”

“You know all those stories? The ghosts with blood and guts spilling all over the place?” Gabriel sighs, shoulders pulling in. “I don’t want you to see me like that, sunshine.”

“I’ll love you matter no what you look like,” Jack replies, raising their hands to kiss Gabriel’s knuckles. “I’d love you even if you were a monster.”

Gabriel’s laugh is a rasp in his throat. “I hope not. That says more about you than me.”

“Yeah, well. Love makes us all fools and all that shit.” Jack reaches up, and for the first time, Gabriel lets him touch his cheek, lets Jack run his hand over familiar cheekbones and the soft skin at the corner of Gabe’s eyes. “You don’t have to show me yet, okay? Just... don’t hide. We’re in this together, right?”

Gabriel sighs, leaning into Jack’s hand. There’s a soft indent in his skull just behind the temple, sharp little slivers poking through the skin, and Jack refuses to flinch when he realizes that he’s touching the place where Gabe’s head got caved in. (He’s seen the reports. He’s immediately tried to forget them.) 

This is the new normal, Jack reminds himself. This is Gabe, still, under the injuries he refuses to show and the armor he can’t remove.

“We’re in this together,” Jack repeats. He peers up into Gabriel’s face, trying to see through the shifting darkness that always seems to shroud his features. “I said no to that medium. I got a second chance with you and I’m not gonna waste it, okay?”

“Even if I look like something out of a fucking B movie?” 

“Even if you look like a zombie from that old music video you like so much,” Jack promises. Gabriel hums, pressing a soft kiss to Jack’s hand. It’s a stalling tactic, a gentle motion of disbelief, Jack knows, and so he adds, “I mean it.”

“You got a big heart, Morrison,” Gabe murmurs. 

“Yeah, well. Just trying to match yours.” 

Gabe laughs, presses one more kiss to Jack’s fingertips. “Well. Give me some time, alright, and then maybe you can try to get this armor off.”

“Looking forwards to it.” 

“Of course you are.” Gabe shakes his head, gently tucks Jack’s hand back under the covers. “And now you should go back to sleep, cariño. Your doctors gave me hell once they stopped screaming, you know. Said I was keeping you up and all that.” 

“Fuck them,” Jack says, just to hear Gabe laugh--really laugh, not that rasp he does when he’s hiding his hurt. He puts on his best Southern accent just to hear that laugh again, hams it up when he adds, “Fuck all y’all. I’m a goddamn adult. I can stay up late as I want.” 

“You little shit,” Gabe cackles, and bends down to kiss Jack’s forehead. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

“Only for you,” Jack snorts, nestling deeper into the covers. “Only because you outrank me.”

“Insubordinate,” Gabe scolds through his grin, and tugs the blankets up higher. He gives Jack one more kiss, and then he’s gone, slipping away into shadows. The room lightens just a little, and now Jack can see the moon through the window. It feels like a curtain’s been pulled back.

Jack closes his eyes, and finds himself missing the darkness. 

Yeah. He’s not running anywhere.


End file.
